If the Steam browser can play videos without Flash's help, I really don't see why it should require it.

Answered. It's just more software we have to install that provides no benefit. Steam could also require us to install skype for chat and voice, and computers would be able to handle it. Steam already went through the effort of building these features, so it's a waste to force us to install skype to cover those features. Similarly, others already went through the effort of making it easy to play x264 video natively on all platforms steam runs on. It's a waste to have us install flash to cover those same features.

The less dependencies the better. I agree and support this suggestion.

There's only a small problem, not all browsers support h.264. Many rely on the open source and free of cost alternative WebM using the VP8 codec. So Valve would have to provide them in two variants depending on the browser.

The less dependencies the better. I agree and support this suggestion.

There's only a small problem, not all browsers support h.264. Many rely on the open source and free of cost alternative WebM using the VP8 codec. So Valve would have to provide them in two variants depending on the browser.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangr0v3

Valve could just do what much of the web is doing and support H.264 with a flash fallback for non-h.264 browsers.

These are good points, but I originally just meant in context of the steam application. Since steam is a custom webkit based browser, they could support whatever video standard they want. They wouldn't need to have a fallback, or multiple variants (for steam the application)

As far as the regular website, the issue is slightly more complex, as noted, because not everyone is currently using the same video standard.